Смешные рассказы / The Funny Stories

He put the paper on his lap and said, “Are you the new editor?”

I said I was.

“Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?”

“No,” I said; “this is my first attempt.”

“I thought so. Have you had any experience in agriculture practically?”

“No. I believe I have not.”

“Some instinct told me so,” said the old gentleman, putting on his spectacles, and looking over them at me, while he folded his paper into a convenient shape. “I wish to read you what must have made me have that instinct. Listen, and see if it was you that wrote it: ‘Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.’ ”

“Now, what do you think of that? – for I really suppose you wrote it?”

“Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I have no doubt that every year millions and millions of turnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy to shake the tree… “

“Shake your grandmother! Turnips don’t grow on trees!”

“Oh, don’t they? Well, who said they did? The language was intended to be figurative. Anybody that knows anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine.”

Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small pieces, and stamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I did not know as much as a cow; and then went out, and, in short, acted in such a way that I felt that he was displeased about something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I could not be any help to him.

Pretty soon after this a long creature, with thin locks hanging down to his shoulders, entered the office and halted, motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in listening attitude. No sound was heard. Still he listened. No sound. Then he turned the key in the door, and tiptoed toward me. He was within long reaching distance of me, when he stopped. He scanned my face with interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, and said:

“There, you wrote that. Read it to me, quick! I suffer.”

I read as follows; and as I did so, I could see the anxiety go out of his face:

“The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it. It should not be imported earlier than June or later than September. In winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch out its young.

“Concerning the pumpkin. This berry is a favorite with the natives of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who prefer it to the raspberry for feeding cows…

The excited listener sprang toward me to shake hands, and said, “There, there, that will do. I know I am all right now, because you have read it just as I did, word for word. But, stranger, when I first read it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before, and my friends kept me under watch so strict, but now I believe I am crazy. With that I started out to kill somebody – because, you know, I knew it would come to that sooner or later. I read one of the paragraphs over again, so as to be certain, and then I burned my house down and started. I have crippled several people, and have got one fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want him. But I thought I would call in here as I passed along and make the thing perfectly certain. And now it is certain, and I tell you it is lucky for the chap that is in the tree. I should kill him, sure, as I go back. Goodbye, sir, good-bye, thank you for the article.”

I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this person had been entertaining himself with. I could not help feeling remotely related to them. But then the regular editor walked in!

The editor was looking sad and perplexed.

“This is a sad business – a very sad business. The reputation of the paper is injured – and permanently, I fear. True, the paper never sold such a large edition or soared to such celebrity; but does one want to be famous for lunacy? My friend, as I am an honest man, the street out here is full of people, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they think you crazy. And well they might after reading your editorials. Why, what put it into your head that you could edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know anything agriculture. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! I want you to throw up your situation and go. I want no more holiday. Certainly not with you in my chair. It makes me lose all patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under the head of ‘Landscape Gardening.’ Oh! why didn’t you tell me you didn’t know anything about agriculture?”

“Tell you, you cabbage, you son of a cauliflower? I tell you I have been in the editorial business for 14 years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man’s having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper. You turnip! Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who criticize the Indian campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam, and who never have had to pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to build the evening camp-fire with. Who write the temperance appeals? Folks who will never draw another sober breath till their grave. Who edit the agricultural papers, you? Men, as a general thing, who fail in the poetry line, novel line, drama line, city-editor line, and finally end up with articles on agriculture. You try to tell me anything about the newspaper business! I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes. I leave, sir. Since I have been treated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I have done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract as far as I was permitted to do it. I said I could make your paper of interest to all classes – and I have. I said I could run your circulation up to 20,000 copies, and if I had had two more weeks I’d have done it. You are the loser by this rupture, not me, Pie-plant. Adios.”

I then left.

Playing the Courier

A time would come when we must go to Geneva, and from thence, by a series of day-long journeys, to Bayreuth in Bavaria. I should have to have a courier, of course, to take care of so considerable a party as mine.

But I procrastinated. The time slipped along, and at last I woke up one day to the fact that we were ready to move and had no courier. I then decided I would make the first stage without help – I did it.

I brought the party from Aix to Geneva by myself – four people. The distance was two hours and more, and there was one change of cars. There was not an accident of any kind, except leaving a trunk and some other matters on the platform – a thing which can hardly be called an accident, it is so common. So I offered to conduct the party all the way to Bayreuth.

This was a mistake, though it did not seem so at the time. There was more detail than I thought there would be: 1. Two persons whom we had left in a Genevan pension some weeks before must be collected and brought to the hotel; 2. I must notify the people on the Grand Quay who store trunks to bring seven of our stored trunks to the hotel and carry back seven which they would find in the lobby; 3. I must find out what part of Europe Bayreuth was in and buy seven railway tickets for that point; 4. I must send a telegram to a friend in the Netherlands; 5. It was now 2 in the afternoon, and we must be ready for the first night train and make sure of sleeping-car tickets; 6. I must draw money at the bank.

It seemed to me that the sleeping-car tickets must be the most important thing, so I went to the station myself to make sure. I applied for the tickets, and they asked me which route I wanted to go by, and that embarrassed me. There were so many people around, and I did not know anything about the routes and did not suppose there were going to be two. So I judged it best to go back, map out the road and come again.

I took a cab, and on my way up-stairs at the hotel I remembered that I was out of cigars. I thought it would be well to get some while I remembered it. It was only round the corner. I asked the cabman to wait where he was. Thinking of the telegram to my friend in the Netherlands, I forgot the cigars and the cab. I was going to ask the hotel people to send the telegram, but as I could not be far from the post office, I thought I would do it myself.

The post office was further than I had supposed. I found the place at last and wrote the telegram and handed it in. The clerk was a severe-looking man, and he began to fire French questions at me in such a liquid form that I could not separate his words from each other. I got embarrassed again. But an Englishman stepped up and said the clerk wanted to know where he was to send the telegram. I could not tell him, because it was not my telegram. I explained that I was merely sending it for a member of my party. But nothing would satisfy the clerk but the address. So I said that if he insisted that much I would go back and get it.

However, I thought I would go and collect those lacking two persons first. Then I remembered the cab was still waiting for me at the hotel; so I called another cab and told the man to go down and fetch it to the post office and wait till I came.

I had a long, hot walk to collect those people, and when I got there they couldn’t come with me because they had heavy satchels and must have a cab. I went away to find one, but noticed that I had reached the neighborhood of the Grand Quay – at least I thought I had – so I decided to save time by arranging about the trunks. After a while, although I did not find the Grand Quay, I found a cigar shop, and remembered about the cigars. I said I was going to Bayreuth, and wanted enough cigars for the journey. The man asked me which route I was going to take. I said I did not know. He said he would recommend me to go by Zurich and various other places which he named, and offered to sell me seven second-class through tickets for $22 each. I was already tired of riding second-class on first-class tickets, so I took him up.[7]

By and by I found Natural & Co.’s storage office, and told them to send seven of our trunks to the hotel and put them in the lobby. It seemed to me that I was not delivering the whole of the message, still it was all I could find in my head.

Next I found the bank and asked for some money, but I had left my letter of credit somewhere and was not able to draw. I remembered now that I must have left it lying on the table where I wrote my telegram; so I got a cab and drove to the post office and went upstairs. They said that a letter of credit had indeed been left on the table, but that it was now in the hands of the police authorities. So it would be necessary for me to go there and prove property. They sent a boy with me, and we went out the back way and walked a couple of miles and found the place. And then I remembered about my cabs, and asked the boy to send them to me when he got back to the post office. Then I was told that the Mayor had gone to dinner. I thought I would go to dinner myself, but the officer on duty thought differently, and I stayed.

The Mayor returned at half past 10, but said it was too late to do anything – come at 9.30 in the morning. The officer wanted to keep me all night, and said I was a suspicious-looking person, and probably did not own the letter of credit, and didn’t know what a letter of credit was, but merely wanted to get it because I was probably a person that would want anything he could get, whether it was valuable or not. But the Mayor said he saw nothing suspicious about me. So I thanked him and he set me free, and I went home in my three cabs.

As I was awfully tired and in no condition to answer questions. I thought I would not disturb the Expedition at that time of night. There was a vacant room I knew of at the other end of the hall. But a watch had been set, the Expedition had been anxious about me. The Expedition sat on four chairs in a row, with shawls and things all on, satchels and guide-books in lap. They had been sitting like that for four hours. Yes, and they were waiting – waiting for me.

I tried to touch their hearts and soften the bitter resentment in those faces by making of the whole ghastly thing a humorous incident, but it was not the right atmosphere for it. I got not one smile; not one line in those offended faces relaxed. The head of the Expedition said:

“Where have you been? Where are the two others?”

“Oh, they’re all right. I was to fetch a cab. I will go straight off, and – “

“Sit down! Don’t you know it is 11 o’clock? Where did you leave them?”

“At the pension.”

“Why didn’t you bring them?”

“Because we couldn’t carry the satchels. And so I thought – ”

“Thought! You should not try to think. One cannot think without the proper machinery. It is two miles to that pension. Did you go there without a cab?”

“I – well, I didn’t intend to; it only happened so.”

“How did it happen so?”

“Because I was at the post office and I remembered that I had left a cab waiting here, and so I sent another cab to – to – ”

“To what?”

“Well, I don’t remember now, but I think the new cab was to ask the hotel to pay the old cab, and send it away.”

“And who was to pay the new cab?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Why didn’t you have the new cab come back for you?”

“Oh, that is what I did. I remember now. Yes, that is what I did. Because I remember that when I – ”

“Well, then, why didn’t it come back for you?”

“To the post office? Why, it did.”

“Very well, then, why did you walk to the pension?”

“I–I don’t quite remember how that happened – Oh, yes, I wrote the despatch to send to the Netherlands, and – ”

“Oh, thank goodness, you did accomplish something! I – what makes you look like that! You are trying to avoid my eye. That despatch is the most important thing that – You haven’t sent that despatch!”

“I haven’t said I didn’t send it.”

“You don’t need to. Oh, dear, why didn’t you send it?”

“Well, you see, with so many things to do and think of, I – they’re very particular there, and after I had written the telegram – ”

“Oh, never mind, let it go, explanations can’t help anyone now – what will he think of us?”

“Oh, that’s all right, that’s all right, he’ll think we gave the telegram to the hotel people, and that they – ”

“Why, certainly! Why didn’t you do that?”

“Yes, I know, but then I had it on my mind that I must get to the bank and draw some money – “

“How much did you draw?”

“Well, I–I had an idea that – that – ”

“Do turn your face this way and let me – why, you haven’t drawn any money!”

“Well, the banker said – “

“Never mind what the banker said – ”

“Well, then, the simple fact was that I hadn’t my letter of credit.”

“Hadn’t your letter of credit?”

“Hadn’t my letter of credit.”

“Don’t repeat me like that. Where was it?”

“At the post office.”

“What was it doing there?”

“Well, I forgot it and left it there.”

“I’ve seen a good many couriers, but of all the couriers that ever I – ”

“I’ve done the best I could.”

“Well, so you have, poor thing. It will all come out right. We can take the 7:30 train in the morning just as well. You’ve bought the tickets?”

“I have – and it’s a bargain, too. Second class.”

“I’m glad of it. What did you pay?”

“Twenty-two dollars a ticket – through to Bayreuth.”

“Why, I didn’t know you could buy through tickets anywhere but in London and Paris.”

“Some people can’t, maybe; but some people can – ”

“It seems a rather high price – We shall have to get up pretty early, and so there should be no packing to do. Your umbrella, your rubbers, your cigars – what is the matter?”

“I’ve left the cigars at the bank.”

“Just think of it! Well, your umbrella?”

“I’ll have that all right. There’s no hurry.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, that’s all right; I’ll take care of – ”

“Where is that umbrella?”

“Well, I think I left it at the cigar shop; but anyway – “

“Take your feet out from under that thing. It’s just as I expected! Where are your rubbers?”

“They – well – ”

“Where are your rubbers?”

“Well, you see – well, it was this way. First, the officer said – ”

“What officer?”

“Police officer but the Mayor, he – ”